By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

That time of year that a majority of sports don’t look forward to is right around the corner. All the college teams have finished up their seasons, the only professional league going is Major League Baseball (not much to cheer about once again for those us in the Southeast), and football is still more than a month away.

For a desperate few, they will turn to tennis and golf; two sports I’m not averse to watching, but I realize I’m in the minority.

Since this is the start of a slow period, it’s also the perfect time to ask some of those hypothetical questions that there just enough time for when you’re busy writing about whether Matt Ryan will be able to repeat as MVP, or if John Calipari really is Bill Paxton’s character from True Lies. (I may be onto something there).

So, I’m going to ask a question where there is at least a 50/50 chance you’ve asked yourself this already; If Georgia underperforms this upcoming season, and it’s obvious Kirby Smart is struggling, does Georgia send out their own Bat Signal with hopes of having Bob Stoops answer the call?

Now, before you go replacing that picture you have of Tim Tebow hanging on your dart board with one of yours truly, please understand I am not advocating that Georgia actually do this. I am merely asking the question.

I know Stoops has a reputation for not being able to win the big game and it’s a fair assessment, especially when you compare him to the likes of Nick Saban and Urban Meyer.

Compare him to the other 98 percent of college football coaches though and I think most of them would gladly take his coaching career over theirs.

Opportunities to bring in a coach like Stoops don’t happen very often. There aren’t too many coaches who leave a top tier program as abruptly as the former Oklahoma coach did. In the few occasions it has occurred, whenever that particular coach did get back into the profession it was normally at a school that was just as prominent, if not more so, than the one they left. Urban Meyer is one of the better, and most recent, examples.

I have no idea if there is some backstory to why Bob Stoops retired all of a sudden, but you can bet that if he’s going to return, it’s not going to be at a school like Wake Forest.

Which is where Georgia comes in. The University of Georgia and their fans want nothing more than to be thought of as a top tier football program, and would be willing to do almost anything to achieve it.

I don’t mean that in a bad way, I’m just saying that Athens would greet Steve Spurrier with a key to the city if they thought he could bring them a title.

Georgia is one of a handful of schools that has the notoriety, the deep pockets to pay, and possible flexibility with their head coach (depending on how this season goes), to attract someone Stoops. Even I have to admit that if Georgia came knocking, it would be hard to turn down.

Look, as I mentioned above, I’m not saying this is something that will, or even should happen. All I’m saying is it’s an interesting hypothetical. I mean, just think about this for a second. As excited as you are about this upcoming season, how much more excited would you be if it was Bob Stoops leading your team onto the field?